Posted for Tim Sands

Current pharma top-earner Pfizer may not be by 2014 according to a study released this week.

Pharmaceutical industry analysis company EvaluatePharma, released the report on Monday, updating their recently release analysis “World Preview 2012”. It doesn’t paint a rosy picture for US pharmaceutical companies. Only Johnson and Johnson are predicted to be in the top 5, with European companies Roche, Sanofi-Aventis, GlaxoSmithKline and Novartis in the top four slots.

The problem facing the pharma industry is a patent “cliff”, with the patents on several blockbusters set to run out and declining new approvals to replacement (eg Reuters). Pfizer is particularly set to suffer as patents expiring on Viagra and Lipitor amongst others.

Roche, ranked 5th in 2007, is predicted to come out on top. According to Evaluate Pharma this holds even without a full merger with Genentech.

A distinctly gloomy Wall Street Journal quotes Eli Lilly chairman, Sidney Taurel: “I think the industry is doomed if we don’t change”, perhaps reflecting the company’s predicted slide from 10th to a sorry 15th. Such predictions are clearly prone to uncertainty and indeed a blog post by the same author as the Journal piece tells us to take the reports with a grain of salt.